On an indian Highway

The snaps used in this article are taken on the same day, and it spans roughly 300km (Madurai - Tutuicorin > Thiruchendur > Thirunelvelly >Courtallam > Rajapalayam > Madurai)

Traveling on an Indian highway is an unique experience. Wait a minute, don't imagine 4 or 6 track roads that we are used to in Malaysia. Here the roads are just two tracks (in fact no tracks at all in many roads) in most of the locations and at times it even narrows down to a single track.

You would get to see cattle coming from the other side, like I've caught in this picture:


Or see the man kudurai Iyyanar (God of protection, who is usually depicted on a horse):


Most of the Indian highways pass through agricultural lands, farming villages, and you get to see the colorful countryside and its life:) I tried to drive between my home town Madurai to Tuticorin (a port city). Within minutes, a van from the other side of the traffic was trying to overtake a container and came directly in front of my car, just few feet away. I braked hard and shrieked, for a moment I thought that am gone! but the van just slowed a bit and flew away!!! From there I decided to sit back, enjoy and take pictures that we can never see in this part of the world.

Lorries and trailers filled with sugarcane, probably going to the sugar factory

Peasant taking hay stack at the end of the day.

Rotora aala maram (Road side banyan tree), which is oft shown in Indian movies

The salt mines in around the villages are a site to look at. Salt is mined by stagnating sea water and letting it dry out in the hot sun. Once dried, they are swept aside in small mounds. Yes, the small mounds of whitish substance is the table salt in its raw form!


In the route between Courtallam to Rajapalayam lies the windy side of Western Ghats, so you get to see lot of wind mills!

My favorite clouds and the Western Ghats range in the background.

Memorable Courtallam

On the way back from Thiruchendur, we decided to go to Courtallam, a small town in the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu famous for water falls. The peak season is between June to August, during this period people flock there to enjoy the pleasant breeze and shower in the seasonal water falls. Surprisingly, even in September, we heard that there was water in that town, so went there.

When we used to live in India, we used to frequent this place for every season, and do certain things diligently, like eat hot halwa (Indian sweet made of wheat flour) near Main Falls. So, this time around my first stop, was at the famous halwa shop and had halwa and at the same time had visual treat, which is shown below:


As we had to go back to Madurai before dark, we headed for Five Falls. This place is named after the falls that pour down from the same range! See the picturesque view:



Another specialty of this town is monkeys! In Five Falls, as there was not much crowd, monkeys were having a gala time.

True to their attitude, this monkey was ripping off the flowers laid on top of the Elephant statue, kind cute is isn't it?
Like humans, mom protectively taking the baby for a walk.